Joanna Newsom review (for Steveums et al.)

[monet2u]

For the pics go here http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... N26GJ1.DTL

REVIEW
Chanteuse with a harp mesmerizes sellout S.F. crowd
Jaan Uhelszki, Special to The Chronicle

Wednesday, December 20, 2006


Joanna Newsom gave new meaning to the term "going medieval on you" Monday night at the first of three sold-out shows at Great American Music Hall. Her methods are much subtler than those of, say, Randy Savage, the Undertaker or Andre the Giant. Yet the results are similar. She's not the fragile woodland creature that you've come to believe she is; by the end of her 90-minute set, you're still held in a headlock, but you find yourself clamoring for more.

"Bay Area!" a clueless audience member yelled at the beginning of Monday's show -- among the clamor of "I love you," "Will you marry me," "You're cute" and other expressions of zealous affection.

"Did you just yell Bay Area?" the pop harpist asked incredulously. "Hmm," she mused archly, a flawless eyebrow raised. Perhaps she'd have been more receptive if the fan had screeched "Atlantis" or "Ys," the name of the mythical Breton island for which she named her recent album.

Sitting before her arcane instrument -- at least a foot taller than she is -- she smoothed the sides of a puffy-sleeved dress that recalled Guinevere or Juliet.

She began with the winsome and wordy "Bridges and Balloons" and the near-tango rebuke of "Book of Right," which chided, "Even when you touch my face/ You know your place," from 2004's "Milk-Fed Mender," before she attacked the more prodigious and lyrically dense songs from "Ys."

Rarely has an artist in recent times polarized listeners so profoundly. While some publications have placed a fairy crown on her long golden locks, others, such as Rolling Stone, have labeled her a gorgeous sham -- comparing her to Tiny Tim or Cat Power. The debate seems to spin on one important point: When she sings in that strange childlike voice, does she mean it? Or is she just peddling snake oil?

Newsom, who was born in Nevada City and schooled at Mills College in Oakland, is more snake charmer than snake-oil saleswoman. She creates exotic, strangely seductive sounds on her stately instrument, over which her hands move spasmodically, as if they have minds of their own. She picks at the harp with the speed and vengeance of Eddie Van Halen, shredding until her slender fingers, by rights, should be bleeding.

Her voice, however, was ailing. "I haven't had a voice for the last few days, and I had to cancel the last two shows," she confessed. "But it's really nice to be here again," she added, which spurred a ripple of applause among the faithful.

"You don't have to clap, I'm just making conversation," she said impishly. The sound stopped immediately. Her wish is strangely her fans' command, because while she might seem like Princess Leia with even longer hair, she is more Han Solo.

She launched into a spirited rendition of "Ys" with the help of four musicians, including a drummer sawing on an array of odd instruments, including a bouzouki, a glockenspiel, tambura, dulcimer and an accordion -- exactly as the 55-minute, 42-second album is presented on disc, complete with 16-minute songs and only minimal breaks between them. How she remembers all the lyrically dense songs is beyond comprehension, but she does, beginning with the folkloric "Emily," named for her sister and not the poet Emily Dickinson, as many have speculated.

For one, Dickinson's poetry is austere and pointed, while Newsom is long-winded and baroque -- and in this case rather scientific, pointing out the difference between meteors and meteorites on the song, elegantly employing astronomical metaphors to sum up the unraveling of a relationship. Shakespearean as well as scientific, this song set the tone for what is more concept album of lost love than just a loose configuration of songs.

But what songs. Anthropomorphizing animals on "Monkey and Bear," she added weight to the Mars and Venus debate between the sexes, casting them as different species altogether. "Sawdust & Diamonds" is her own circle of hell, ending with only most fragile promise of redemption.

By the time she got to "Only Skin," which she called "the long one," she was fully recovered. Her heart hardened, railing against the inevitable end of affection, she shrilled repeatedly, demanding to know: "Why would you say I was the last one?"

The healing and gentle "Cosmia" was like an accompaniment to a Morris dance. Courtly, proper and yearning, it had a mood that was accentuated by a wailing saw played by the group's accordionist. On this final song in the suite, she took the listener through the five stages of grief, ending with her mournful acceptance that love has fled. Yet still, she whispered prayerfully, "I miss your precious heart."

Then she rose from her crimson tuffet -- bumping her head softly against the mike stand and said: "That's it."

But it wasn't. The audience groaned with displeasure. "That's just not fair," someone screamed. And it seemed to work. Newsom returned to the stage to perform three more, earlier, songs. "Sadie" seemed a precursor to the lyrical universe of Emily, but it sounded as if it was born in the Appalachian Mountains instead of the Sierra foothills. She followed with "Peach, Plum and Pear," which had nothing to do with fruit but a lot to do with anger, finding Newsom abusing her instrument, playing it like more like a slap bass than a harp. .

Perhaps she was just mad that she was seduced into doing an encore while ill. "This is my last song for real," she stated primly. "I'm losing my voice and I have to do three more of these." Closing with the darkly romantic "Clam Crab Cockle Cowrie," she sounded like a not-so-distant member of the Carter family, blurring the line between genres, but coming into sharper focus as an artist.


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[Steveums]

It seems that she's been doing a few old songs, and then the whole of Ys, for most of the shows. I CAN'T WAIT 4 WEEKS FWRUI@$IOFNJSKLJFGs

[Irock]

So Steveums, I did buy said CD. I give it thumbs up, though I doubt I'll ever love it as much as you do.